There's more than one way o' skinnin' a cat
by The Libran Iniquity
Summary: Malcolm Reed and the long running war with his greatest nemesis: a cat named Tinkerbell


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Star Trek: Enterprise does not belong to me in any way, shape or form. I'm only in this for the character torture.

Finished mostly to annoy Lora: she thought I was _crazy_ for writing this. Me? Crazy? (Look who's talking ;) ) Well... maybe :D but this _is_ based on a true story... mah dear ol' History teacher's story, no less. I just expanded the idea a little... ;)  
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The target was within sight... standing no more than five or six metres behind the wall, making some kind of animalistic noise from somewhere in its throat. He couldn't believe it - the target was just leaving itself wide open to any kind of attack. From behind, from the left or the right, from above... not the front, though... even it would be able to see something coming from straight ahead.

Closer and closer he crept, using the green foliage around him as camouflage, keeping close in to the wall towering up above him to the right. It was red-brick, and every few centimetres or so bits of the cement flaked away and landed on his face, nearly making him sneeze, but not quite. He couldn't make any noise. Not now. Not now that he was so close...

He could almost smell his target now, at this closer distance. The familiar stench that made him want to regurgitate breakfast there and then, but again that was out of the question. The point now was _not_ to attract attention to himself, to stay out of sight and earshot of the target.

Oh, it would be good this time. It had been waiting for this for a long, long time, tormenting him like this, making him suffer utter humiliation in front of so many others on the street... Bugsy at number fifteen, sisters Jemima and Lily-Anne at number seven, Linus at number twenty. All of them... all of his friends in this street had been there to see it...

And now it was payback. Blessed, blessed payback. Closer and closer he crept, ignoring the growing ache in the small of his back for crouching like this for so long. Inch by inch, centimetre by centimetre...

The target within reach, he pounced.

"Raaaaaaooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwr!!"

In his own front garden, Malcolm Reed stumbled and staggered as something latched itself onto his head, covering his eyes and nose, as well as most of the rest of the head. Reaching blindly upwards, he tried to prise the large furry obstacle off and away from him.

But before he could do so, he felt a familiar, blocking sensation in his nose. He groaned, spitting through fur and breathing more up his nose as he did so, but not before... "AaaaaaaaaaaaaaCHOO!" With the first sneeze, his head rocked forward violently, taking both him and the attachment on his head with it. "Aaaaaaaaa..."

However, that second sneeze of Malcolm's never came - eyes still tightly shut against the furry legs covering them, he felt rather than saw someone pull the cat off his head, and as they did so it was with a certain amount of satisfaction that he heard the cat yowling in what could well have been pain.

Seconds later he dared to open his eyes, still streaming rather violently, and through the inadvertent tears he could just about see his little sister standing there with some sort of expression of her face - it could have been sympathetic, it could have been mildly mocking - heck, it could have been anything, for Malcolm could not see very much at all beyond the end of his nose (if that far...).

His hearing wasn't too badly affected, though. "Do you want me to go get your meds?" Madeleine asked. She sounded concerned, which was probably a good thing given the circumstances.

Malcolm nodded almost feverishly, and finally trusting himself to speak, said, "Keep an eye out for Father."

"I will," Madeleine replied before leaving him in the garden. The meds that Malcolm took in case of allergic reactions were kept by the children's mother in the second drawer from the right in the antique wooden dresser that went everywhere Captain Reed's family went, and to keep said Naval captain out of the loop, they were hidden behind old school reports of both children - the theory went that Stuart didn't give enough of a fiddle about Malcolm's Science and History lessons to ever go rummaging around in that particular drawer.

But anyway. Within minutes Malcolm could hear his sister clomping back out of the house - by now, of course, most of the tears had stopped streaming down his face, but the area directly around his eyes was still a little bit too sore for personal comfort. So he felt rather than saw her give him the small spray, and with the ease of about six months' practice Malcolm pushed the spray down against one of the veins in his arm and released the anti-histamine mixture (a combination of older and more recent allergy treatments). It worked almost instantly, although the stinging either side of his eyes didn't abate for a few more seconds.

Finally Malcolm opened his eyes, and smiled at his little sister. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she grinned back. "But what did you do to annoy him this time?"

Malcolm considered his next words carefully. "Probably 'cos I did the presentation for Miss Halmers on Starfleet instead of the Royal Navy," he answered, referring to the debacle of the previous month, the fallout of which had remained in the Reed household for more than three weeks until Mary called a truce between Stuart and his twelve-year-old son. "He said that in his opinion I was garnering the opinions of ignorant Yanks instead of the greats like Nelson and Horatio." This little "gem" of wisdom had been yelled in the heat of the argument; in the time after, Malcolm had never pointed out to his father that Horatio and Nelson were actually one and the same person - it would only have made things worse.

Nine-year-old Madeleine's eyes widened. "I meant the cat, stupid."

"Oh." Malcolm blushed. "Well, I don't know what I did to the cat this time. Maybe I stomped on its kitty litter tray by accident or something." At his sister's sceptical expression he sighed, suddenly seeming much older than his twelve and a bit years. "Tinkerbell hates me," he said somewhat plaintively, "and that's that."

"But he's... Tinkerbell," Madeleine retorted, her "little girl" genes kicking in again. "You can't do anything to him - I'll tell Mummy otherwise."

"No you won't," Malcolm shot back.

She stood her ground defiantly. "Why?"

"Because then I'll tell her that it's you who keeps leaving on lights in the middle of the night," he replied swiftly.

Instantly Madeleine paled and said nothing. As well as the ongoing contentions between Malcolm and his father, the other long-running feud in the Reed family was to do with the fact that at nearly ten years old, Madeleine was still terrified of the dark, and refused to sleep without her bedroom door wide open and no less than three separate lights shining brightly in the hallway and bathroom. Up to this point, Malcolm had taken the blame, telling his mother that he was probably sleepwalking or something, and he couldn't help it if he left various lights on sometimes (all the time). It was the same as Stuart Reed's persistence with his water-shy son - Reed men joined the Navy, while Reed women (and usually most of the men as well) were mistresses (or masters, depending) of their domain - so no silly piffle about being afraid of the dark.

It worked out as rather an effective barter system, really. Madeleine covered for Malcolm's "swimming lessons" (or rather dubiously distinct lack, thereof), and in return he spun yarns to their mother about sleepwalking.

But again, no matter. Having now decided that he was sufficiently recovered from the allergic reaction, Malcolm noisily wiped his nose on his sleeve (much to his little sister's disgust).

"But you're not going to do anything bad to Tinkerbell, are you?" Madeleine asked him, still with the wide doe eyes and innocent, vulnerable little girl look on her face.

"No," Malcolm replied, shaking his head. Satisfied, she skipped back inside the house. "Not _bad_..." he added to an empty front garden.

Three brick walls away from him, a black-and-grey male tabby cat named Tinkerbell hissed quietly and slunk into the peony bushes lining number eleven.

- - - - -  
- - - - -

Things, it seemed, had always been like this. As far as Malcolm could remember, not much had really changed in the year or so that the Reeds had occupied number nineteen of this particular road, unless one counted crazy old Eliza Hobson at number twenty-one "acquiring" a small black-and-grey tabby cat about a month after the Reeds had moved into the street. Both Malcolm and Madeleine had been fascinated with the small furry thing that watched them every morning on their way to school, although neither child could quite work out why the kitty ran away every time one of them went near it.

One morning, however, little Maddy was successful in scooping the little kitten up into her arms and paraded back down towards her house with a big grin on her face. She had invited Malcolm to come pet it before it ran away again, and it was during the few short seconds that Malcolm had stroked Tinkerbell's head that he, and indeed his family had learned some new and really quite important facts.

One, Malcolm was violently allergic to cats - more specifically, cat _hairs_.

Two, Tinkerbell the tabby kitten really didn't take kindly to being subjected to elephantine sneezes, sniffles and, ultimately, a great big sticky ball of yellow-green snot directly between the eyes (had it landed even half a centimetre in either direction, the bemused vet had told Malcolm's parents, then the cat would likely be half blind by now).

Three, Tinkerbell the tabby kitten was a kitty who knew how to hold a grudge. Ever since that fateful cuddle session courtesy of Madeleine, it seemed that Tink had taken every opportunity possible to take Malcolm down. And despite another of the unexplainable Rules of Reed - revenge is unhealthy and wastes time and resources - being hammered home by his father after an... incident back in primary school, revenge was indeed the only thing routing through the child's head later that day as he clambered up the rickety ladder that led up to the attic.

The attic of this particular house was fairly sprawling, unevenly floored and generally the dustiest place on Earth (not counting crazy Eliza Hobson's windows). Incidentally, when the Reeds had found out that Malcolm was allergic to cat hair, dust had also cropped up on the list handed over by the round-faced doctor - but hello, allergy medicine here. Malcolm's nose wouldn't be reacting to anything for at least another six hours.

Malcolm topped the ladder with ease and switched on the attic light, the switch to which was hidden behind one of the wooden beams poking out of the floor and stretching right up to the underside of the roof tiles. He blinked a couple of times to get his bearings, then looked around.

Various boxes were scattered here and there in the midst of fluffy grey... well, fluff that also covered most of the floor (in addition to shrapnel from the inside of the roof that had become dislodged and thus fallen downwards - like so many things, however, this is another story). The boxes were mostly cardboard and had simple labels scribbled on the side of them, for example: "Mary's Books", in neat handwriting, "Maddy's teddy bears" in more childish script, "STUART'S NAVY PARAPHERNALIA" in block capitals and finally there were two boxes both with "Mal's things". It was the second of these two boxes that Malcolm made an immediate beeline for, criss-crossing his way through balls of fluff, more boxes and the occasional upright wooden beam to reach it.

Inside the box was a veritable treasure trove that pretty much mapped out Malcolm Reed's twelve years on this planet; tattered and battered toy sailing boats and yachts, children's books about the history of the Royal Navy... all the boring things. Then, of course, there were _Malcolm's_ things: a _papier-mâché_ replica of a twentieth century Naval submarine torpedo he had presented to his rather bemused teacher in Year Five, carefully hand-written notes on the fateful presentation to a Year Seven History teacher on Starfleet, not to mention all the books he had managed to procure on everything to do with the "space race" (ie: the Vulcans and the warp barrier).

And right at the very bottom of the box was little Malcolm's most prized possession; a half-broken, rusting and generally clapped out air rifle that his uncle (on his mum's side) had sneaked to him as a Christmas present when he was eleven. It had been completely broken that Christmas, but since then Malcolm had made it his business to learn how the weapon worked, and as of right there and then the gun wasn't in too bad a shape (Malcolm was actually considering working with weapons when he was grown up, but he wasn't sure how he could do that).

He pulled the rifle completely out of the box, and was turning it this way and that in his hands, when he heard the noise behind him - light, scuffling footsteps that could only have belonged to one person. "Maddy," he said, not turning around, "what are you doing up here?"

"Looking for you, dummy," Madeleine retorted instantly. She came around the beams and boxes, squatting opposite her brother. She then caught sight of the weapon in his hand. Almost comically, her eyes widened. "What are you going to do with that?" she asked, a near fearful note in her voice.

"I don't know," Malcolm replied honestly, putting the dilapidated rifle back on top of the box. "I was thinking about that bloody cat," he added, muttering under his breath, but unfortunately for him, his sister caught every word.

Inexplicably, she grinned. "You're just out to piss off Tinkerbell now, aren't you?" she asked him.

Malcolm was shocked. "Where did you hear that word?" he demanded of her.

"Mummy," Madeleine told him. "She says lots of things when she thinks Daddy's not listening." The grin on her face widened. "Mummy says Daddy's a right royal pain in the arse, and he should get a bloody hobby," she recited happily.

Malcolm stared at his - supposedly innocent! - little sister. "You shouldn't say things like that," he told her as sternly as he could manage.

The doe eyes again. "Why not?"

Malcolm floundered. "Because... because you just shouldn't," he said eventually.

"But you did!" Ah, such childish logic.

"I'm allowed to," Malcolm replied.

"Why?" This could take some time.

"Because I'm allergic to the bloody cat," Malcolm told Madeleine firmly. "And I'm not going to hurt it," he added as... well, as a bit of a very late afterthought.

"Him," Madeleine corrected. "Tinkerbell's a him."

"Fine," Malcolm replied. "But I'm not going to hurt it. Just wanna scare it."

Madeleine didn't seem very appeased, but she let it go for the moment.

- - - - -  
- - - - -

The target was within sight... standing no more than five or six metres behind the wall, making some kind of animalistic noise from somewhere in its throat. He couldn't believe it - the target was just leaving itself wide open to any kind of attack. From behind, from the left or the right, from above... not the front, though... even it would be able to see something coming from straight ahead.

Closer and closer he crept, using the green foliage around him as camouflage, keeping close in to the wall towering up above him to the right. It was red-brick, and every few centimetres or so bits of the cement flaked away and landed on his face, nearly making him sneeze, but not quite. He couldn't make any noise. Not now. Not now that he was so close...

He could almost smell his target now, at this closer distance. The familiar stench that made him want to regurgitate breakfast there and then, but again that was out of the question. The point now was _not_ to attract attention to himself, to stay out of sight and earshot of the target.

Oh, it would be good this time. It had been waiting for this for a long, long time, tormenting him like this, making him suffer utter humiliation in front of so many others on the street... Greg at number fifteen, Danny at number seven, sisters Martha and Maria at number twenty. All of them... all of his friends in this street had been there to see it...

And now it was payback. Blessed, blessed payback. Closer and closer he crept, ignoring the growing ache in the small of his back for crouching like this for so long. Inch by inch, centimetre by centimetre...

The target within reach, he acted.

CRACK!

"Raaaaaaooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwr!!"

Looking back in later years, Malcolm would be able to learn no less than three important lessons from this day.

One, he was a crappy shot when it came to guns, rifles, and sidearms in general (some things really didn't change much with practice).

Two, Tinkerbell the tabby cat really didn't take kindly to being shot in the arse with a half-broken, rusting and generally clapped out air rifle that he had been given as a secret Christmas present.

Three, Tinkerbell the tabby cat was a kitty who really knew how to hold a grudge; three days later it pounced again, necessitating a slight change to the dosage levels of Malcolm's allergy treatment.

But hey, he could cope with it. He'd get the damn cat back one day. Of course he would.

After all, Malcolm Reed was a tactician at heart.

This sort of thing came naturally.


End file.
